HD Color/Chip Charts
 

Does anyone use them? I'm considering buying a set to be able to better balance colors accurately between different cams in post. Anyone else doing this?

hmmm... I can hear the digital crickets chirping. Well, for the sake of improving my color correction I have ordered a set of color chip charts and will be using them this weekend with three diff. cameras, so I'll report back as to if they helped me in post or not. I'm pretty sure they will - even if it's just to match the charts by eyeballing them, although there are easy digital ways to make the blacks, whites, and colors match.

Color correction is just a huge black hole of knowledge and skill, but using some frame of reference between cams should seriously help my very limited knowledge in trying to make the cams match up better.

Hi Bill,

Would love to hear your feedback after first use.

A good place to start first is white balance. If white balance isn't correct, color will be off. If you attempt to "correct" color before white balance, you can wind up going in circles which usually results in making things worse not better.

It goes without saying; the best time to set white balance is when you are shooting. If this wasn't done or if there still is a problem such as the difference between two camera, all is not lost. Although the nuances of the procedure will differ a bit depending on the NLE that you use, the principle of the operation is the same. This procedure is Vegas Pro 8 specific but it will be very similar in other NLE's. Open your color corrector filter. On the "High" color wheel select the "Choose complimentary color" eyedropper. Click on a portion of your video in your preview window that is white (or supposed to be). This will cause your white balance to be much better. You can fine tune things even more if you repeat this on the "Low" color wheel except click on black. It's trickier on the "Mid" wheel because it is often difficult to find something that is truly neutral gray in your video but you can experiment and undo if it doesn't help.

A good way to check / adjust color balance in post is to shoot a black, white, gray card where you are shooting. You can use the procedure outlined above on the white, black and gray portions of the card. This will provide a more accurate way to verify white balence.

Jim, you are on the money with white balance. That is always my first step before shooting anything. With the addition of the grayscale and color chip cards I can hopefully get very specific in tuning color between cameras - at least that is the goal. Shooting the grayscale cards should enable me to set color correction for whites, blacks, and mids accurately.

The book that comes with the charts should be informative as well - it goes into detail on correct use of the cards and on video color correction. Maybe when I get some stuff done I will post before/after comparisions.